A Canberra prisoner has admitted escaping from custody after briefly going on the run with his fiancee, who had freed him in a dramatic ramming attack on an ACT Corrective Services car.
Kane Quinn, 29, was due to face a five-day hearing in the ACT Magistrates Court next month after pleading not guilty to a charge of escaping from lawful custody.
He instead fronted court on Wednesday, via audio-visual link from the Alexander Maconochie Centre, and switched his plea to guilty.
Quinn's admission of guilt comes a day before his fiancee, Lila Walto, is scheduled to face the ACT Supreme Court to be sentenced over her role in his July 2021 escape.
Walto joined Quinn behind bars at Canberra's jail that month, in the wake of events Detective Acting Inspector Shane Scott likened to "a scene out of a Hollywood movie".
Court documents, previously tendered in Walto's case, show Quinn spent the morning in question repeatedly telling prison guards he had swallowed a battery and did not feel well.
Corrective Services staff made arrangements to transfer Quinn, who is also known as Kane McDowall, to Canberra Hospital for assessment.
They were wary, however, because they had received some intelligence that suggested Quinn was going to collect drugs that had been left in "the area of a Wiggles poster or picture" at the hospital.
When hospital staff checked that area on the advice of officers from Corrective Services, they found a package believed to contain illicit substances.
Guards, who had moved Quinn to the Alexander Maconochie Centre health ward, told him the drugs had been seized and the 29-year-old "became abusive".
He continued to demand that he be taken to hospital and, in light of the intelligence, three guards were tasked with taking him when only two would usually go on such a trip.
En route to the hospital mid-afternoon, the Toyota Camry used to transport Quinn was repeatedly rear-ended on Hindmarsh Drive by a Jeep Wrangler that Walto had stolen during a test drive earlier in the day.
Walto pursued the damaged Camry through suburbs that included Griffith and Kingston, where the chase came to an end as she rammed the driver's side of the Toyota several times.
Quinn managed to get out, yelling "she's trying to kill me" and "let me f---ing go" as one of the guards grabbed him by the handcuffs in an effort to stop him fleeing.
The attempt was unsuccessful and Quinn was able to run to the Wrangler, which took off after the prisoner got in.
Police later found the stolen car in Forrest, where it had been torched and abandoned.
Less than four-and-a-half hours after the inmate's escape, Quinn and Walto were tracked to a Lyneham house.
Quinn hid in the roof and only surrendered after what were described as "prolonged negotiations", during which he shouted at police that he was "not coming out until I have smoked all my drugs".
Investigating police later obtained two recorded prison phone calls, which were made hours prior to the escape.
During the second phone call, Quinn asked Walto if everything was ready and whether she had ended up getting a car.
Walto replied: "Yeah, baby, everything is ready for me and your mum to have dinner tonight."
She later told police she had got to hug and kiss Quinn, with whom she had planned to run away and "start a new life".
Following Quinn's guilty plea on Wednesday, magistrate James Lawton vacated next month's hearing dates and listed his case for sentencing on September 14.
Quinn faces up to five more years on top of his current jail sentence, which the court heard was keeping him behind bars until at least 2024.
Walto, who has now spent a year in custody on remand, pleaded guilty in May to a raft of charges.
These included using force to rescue a person from lawful custody, assaulting front-line community service providers, car theft, dangerous driving and property damage.
